Home and Castle Scene

    He knelt on the roughened planks that had been the floor of this "castle", looked beyond the tattered bible he held and through the open door out into howling wilderness.  Broad swaths of wind-driven white raced across the scene.  There would be little hope of finding them now, even if he had known how long they had been gone.  The heavy door banged continuously against the inside wall as snow advanced steadily into the room.  It was now that Albert wept amongst the remnants of his life.

    Out of necessity he had traded an existence of naivety and comfort for one of isolated security--his home in verdant suburbia for the confines of a three room mountain shack.  He had hacked a life for himself and his sons from the top of this godforsaken crag, had kept them safe.  He'd lived four long years of hardship and self denial and hadn't shed a tear other than those he spared at his beloved wife's passing.

    Now he knelt defeated at the end of it all, windows boarded over, heavy drapes and spartan furnishings, darkness all about.  The only light pale and faded, admitted through a gaping front door which swung open and then slammed shut at the whim of the pitiless storm outside.  His tears fell as if a dam had broken open, curling the pages and washing the dust from the bible he'd put so much credence in, here in the place that was once his castle.  He sobbed uncontrollably realizing that it had all been for nothing.  In spite of his best efforts he wasn't able to stop this.  He could have died with the rest of the world all those years ago.  He could've spared his family the deprivation and allowed them some dignity in their inevitable fates.

    A low moan emanated from the root cellar beneath him and he sucked a breath to hear it again.

    It was Sal.

    Albert put the good book down, its pages flittering wildly from intruding wind, and stood.

    Sal was calling.

    He wiped his sodden cheeks and seemed to acquire an air of new resolve.  Slowly he turned and walked to the bedroom at the back of the cabin.  Even less light here.  Had it been pitch black it wouldn't have mattered-- He had been this way to feed her so many times.

    He brushed a threadbare rug from its perch atop the portal in the floor and bending down, hauled on the iron ring to pull it open.  Albert paused a moment before he moved to the ladder to begin his descent into that familiar darkness.  He lit the lamp when his feet met the floor and stood looking on the only remaining fruit of his efforts.  He'd lost her, too, he knew that, but at least he'd been given an opportunity to care for her as she disintegrated in front of him.

    Sal was standing.  She'd gotten the burlap sack off of her head and had pulled herself to the end of her chains, growling.  In the flickering glow of the lantern the two faced each other.  A stony faced Albert Samuel Redding III and his long dead wife.  There was something about the warmth and the light from that simple kerosene torch that told him he was home.